The late, great Frank Sinatra notwithstanding, lots of things get "under our skin" in the course of our lives.  Our concerns go from treating adolescent conditions like acne or rosacea to attempting to maintain a clear, smooth, soft complexion to dealing with potentially drastic conditions such as diabetic ulcerations, the excruciating pain and lesions of "shingles" and the like.  Chinese medicine has treated skin conditions for thousands of years, and considers it to be one of the most difficult areas of treatment.

We know from Western medicine that the skin is our largest organ of elimination.  Perspiration and skin eruptions serve as pathways of cooling and eliminating toxic material from our systems.  Chinese Medicine looks at the skin in a slightly different light.  The skin is considered to be the distribution surface for wei-qi to repel airborne pathogens, our "first line of defense."  But, also, changes in skin color at certain areas of the body are diagnostic, as is the prevalence of moles and birthmarks.

The ancient beginnings of Chinese herbal medicine taught that the parts of the plant or animal worked on the correlative part of a human.  Thus, the "skin" of a plant or animal may be used to treat the skin of a human.  Examples of this are herbs such as cicada skin (Periostracum Cicadae), anteater scales (Squama Mantis Pentadactylae), even the shell of Chinese soft-shelled turtle (Carapax Amydae Sinensis).  In this issue, we'll talk about just a few of the issues surrounding the complex and fascinating subject of our skin.

Skin Herbs
Skin Maintenance
Swelling, Sores & Ulcers